Image generated by Microsoft Designer (Image Creator)
Bryan Johns
A hypothetical data analysis project, answering a business question for a fictional bikeshare company, analyzing customer behavior and concluding with recommendations to assist in converting casual customers into annual members.
This report analyzes historical data on Cyclistic users to provide insights for a digital marketing campaign aimed at converting casual riders into annual members. Our findings suggest that casual riders use Cyclistic differently than members, and marketing strategies should leverage these behavioral patterns to drive conversions.
Casual riders use Cyclistic for leisure: Their rides are almost twice as long (~20 minutes) with peak traffic on weekends, particularly Saturday afternoons.
Annual members are predominantly commuters: Their rides are shorter (averaging under 12 minutes) and occur mainly during weekday commuting hours (8 AM and 5 PM).
Location trends: Members’ trips are concentrated in downtown Chicago’s central business district (The Loop), while casual riders frequent popular leisure destinations.
Increasing electric bike usage: Both members and casual riders display a mildly growing preference for electric bikes.
Compare the above 2024 maps with 2019’s map of top stations and sightseeing locations.
2019’s Top Member and Casual Stations.
Chicago Sightseeing Map.
Leisure-Focused Marketing: Position membership as a way to enhance casual riders’ existing leisure habits by emphasizing benefits, such as unlimited rides and extended ride times.
Targeted Digital Advertising: Deploy ads on platforms frequented by casual riders, particularly those related to entertainment, travel, and dining, and use geo-targeted ads near high-traffic leisure stations.
Promotional Incentives: Offer weekend-focused memberships, seasonal discounts, referral bonuses, and strategic partnerships with major Chicago events and leisure attractions.
Image from the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate.
This analysis follows the framework outlined in Google’s Data Analytics certificate, structured as follows:
How do annual members and casual riders differ in their use of Cyclistic bikes, and how can this inform marketing strategies to convert casual riders into members?
Cyclistic, a bike-share company in Chicago, aims to increase its number of annual members, as they are more profitable than casual riders. Rather than targeting new customers, the marketing team wants to convert casual riders into annual members by understanding their riding behaviors.
To support this initiative, I have been assigned to analyze how annual members and casual riders use Cyclistic bikes differently. This analysis will identify key trends in usage patterns, which will inform marketing strategies designed to encourage casual riders to become members.
For reference, the full case study details can be found in the Appendix.
The analysis incorporates cleaned ride data from all 5,845,479 bike rides of 2024, detailing trip durations, ride frequencies, station destinations, and date-time information.
Google linked to data provided by Lyft and Divvy from their Chicago operations. The data has been made available by Motivate International Inc. under this license.
A Data Dictionary is attached in the Appendix.
Google provided a starter template to clean the data (see here, covering only Q1 2019 and Q1 2020. The template was substantially modified to clean all of 2024 (see here).
Data cleaning consisted of:
● Created columns for day, month, year, season, and day of the week to support aggregation. Standardized months into two-digit format, e.g., “09” for September.
● Calculated ride_length in minutes.
● Removed negative ride_length values, including
company-flagged Quality Control rides.
● Removed duplicate rides.
● Removed outliers, conservatively dropping the longest 0.25% of rides, over 4.5 hours long.
Casual riders’ trips last almost twice as long as members’ trips (20 minutes vs. 12 minutes).
Members take significantly more trips overall, with regular weekday commuting patterns.
Trip timing differs:
Members peak during weekday commuting hours (8 AM & 5 PM).
Casual riders peak on weekend afternoons.
Trip locations differ:
Members favor The Loop for commuting.
Casual riders frequent tourist/leisure spots (e.g., Shedd Aquarium, Theater on the Lake).
Further insights are available here.
Casual Riders: ~20-minute rides
Members: ~12-minute rides
Ridership peaks in September and nadirs in January.
Seasonality affects both groups similarly.
Casual Riders: Peak late afternoon, especially on weekends.
Members: Peak during weekday commuting hours (8 AM & 5 PM).
| Station | Member Rides |
|---|---|
| Kingsbury St & Kinzie St | 29499 |
| Clinton St & Washington Blvd | 27712 |
| Clinton St & Madison St | 24874 |
| Clark St & Elm St | 24681 |
| Wells St & Concord Ln | 20659 |
| Wells St & Elm St | 20482 |
| Clinton St & Jackson Blvd | 20288 |
| Dearborn St & Erie St | 19468 |
| Canal St & Madison St | 19067 |
| State St & Chicago Ave | 19041 |
| Station | Casual Rides |
|---|---|
| Streeter Dr & Grand Ave | 50801 |
| DuSable Lake Shore Dr & Monroe St | 33884 |
| Michigan Ave & Oak St | 24969 |
| DuSable Lake Shore Dr & North Blvd | 22992 |
| Millennium Park | 22374 |
| Shedd Aquarium | 20969 |
| Dusable Harbor | 18325 |
| Theater on the Lake | 16715 |
| Michigan Ave & 8th St | 13406 |
| Adler Planetarium | 12846 |
This skips the top station, NA, as electric bikes commonly don’t use a docking station.